Awake.

Awake.
Write.
Not yet.
Sleep.
Nope.
Write.
Scared.
Compelled.
On.
Shut down.
Sleep.
Nope.
Write.
Yes.
Here it comes.....
Edit later.
Sleep.

Semicolons

One of my passwords has become irrelevant.   I wonder if I should change it or keep it for memory's sake.  Memory's sake is an interesting sake.   Good sometimes for remembering lessons learned; bad sometimes for re-emoting through events that lost their value days and days ago.  I'll seriously consider a new password.

Relief is getting the tomato plants in before June 1st with cages to boot.

Teaching the last day of school to 9th graders on their way to high school is like sending loved ones off on a boat that you know is going to sink.  You can load it with plenty of life jackets and row boats, but some just won't make it.

I like it when google designs the letters to celebrate a holiday or a birthday.  I wonder if there is a entire team of computer wiz's who make their living designing those letters.  I wonder how much money they make... and if its worth it - designing the same 6 letters over and over.  (It's probably like teaching.  The subject stays the same, but the creativity lies in the new human beings that present themselves each time around.)  I wonder if they make more money than me.   I bet I could google it.

I have a graduate.  I have a child who will graduate from high school tomorrow.  I hope he feels more wise at 38 than I do.  18 and graduated from high school means now you are in charge of your own demise and your parents don't have to work so hard at ruining you.  It's blissful for everyone.  I'm in a static state of cliche the last few weeks.  I wonder if it will end in a few months or if it will just continue through to the first grandchild.  I watched some 10 year olds run home from school today and thought about how a few months ago I would have pined for the days when either I was running home from school, or when I had a house full of kids running home from school, but now (maybe because I'm old!) I realize that being a part of that moment is nothing more than seeing it, understanding it and enjoying it - which I can do - anytime.  I can as a 10 year old, a mother of a 10 year old, the neighbor of a 10 year old, the grandma or great grandma of a 10 year old.  We all live in the same days with each other.  God gives us so many chances to love every moment as we see them over and over.

I got to play the piano for Douglas and Jessie while they sang in class this last week.  It was a quintessential moment for me.  It was one of those slow motion, drink it all in, savor the moment, smell every last bloomin' rose, glance around steadily soaking it in, memorize the feel of the piano keys - moments.  Who I am and what I love is terribly evident in my children; for good or bad, and usually both at the same time. There they were singing their guts out.  My children are the prize.

Corinne is taller than me.  She is her daddy's child.  Maybe that's why I like her so much.

David is absent.  He is absent after school for hours.  He is being raised by this neighborhood on trampolines and with oreos and bike rides and sticks and bows and air soft guns and staring at the creek.  I miss him and love the neighborhood for keeping him out to play for so long.

Mark my words... this will be a landmark summer.  2012.
Congratulations to Douglas.  May the days behind illuminate with understanding for what had to be and what just plain old was. May the days ahead be just right and may you see them as such, always.

This post has two semicolons in it.  I have no idea if they are used correctly or much more about the rest of my punctuation.  I graduated from high school a long time ago.

musica

There is music that inspires instant tears.

Because of a memory.

Billy Joel's Lullaby

Because of an association.

Winter, Joshua Radin

Because of lyrics.

Beggar's Prayer, Emiliana Torrini

Because of the pure emotion.

Lux Arumque, Eric Whittaker

Malka Moma, Philip Koutev

This Years Love, David Gray

Slava V Vishnih Bogu, Rachmaninoff

This is the most magical and the most meaningful.

It's like I remember something I haven't been in yet.

Or is it empathy?

Are you so pushed around by emotion?

There's music for cleaning (Touch) and for dancing (Blue Savannah) and kissing (Every Breath You Take). There's music for staring (Gravity) and some for listening (Love, Unrequited Robs Me of Me Rest). There's music for driving (Alive and Kicking) and running (Impossible) and for eating (One Note Samba) .

There's music for flying (Just Like Heaven) and cooking (Ray Charles)  .

And probably some for dying. I hope there is music on this side when I go, and on the next.

I wonder if it will be the same song.

Thanks to 16 months of Losing.

Losing is being right but giving up.

I want to be kind more than right.

Losing is wanting without getting.

I want to be strong enough to want things I'll never have.

Losing is letting go.

I don't want to create the best tomorrow, I want to create the right one.

Losing is not being satisfied.

I want the freedom that comes without appetites to feed.

Losing is only wishing.

I want to wish for impossible stuff too.  It's fun.

Losing is not getting credit.

I want to serve and be forgotten.

Losing is not being loved back.

I want to love with every possibility of my heart and not with the limits of someone else's.

Losing is not being first.

I want to walk my own path.  

Losing is running out of time.

I want front row seats to every story - better yet, a supporting role.  But there isn't time.  And I want to die in agony that I didn't get to see them all.  

I want to be meek.

I want to lose more often.

I think God intends for us to desire things we will never have. 

Losing is living free of the conditions of winning.

I want to be a loser.

Lonely.

When I was 17, I was sat on a beach at Carmel Meadows and discovered my own company.  I came in a powerful state of self-pity.  I had made strong choices about with whom I would spend time and to whom I would give my affection.  I had an unreasonable standard and it left me alone.  I climbed down the thick stairs and took off my shoes to walk the edge of the water and found a place dry enough to sit.  I looked to my right and saw a bird made from the rocks.  He is a fat, cheerful bird with a straight, small beak and a dented eye.  His wings are folded back and he watches the water.  I was delighted by his company and couldn't help but stare at him and hope he was there for me.  I looked around for someone to show, but...  I was alone.  And it was ok.  I knew that I could make tough decisions because I had made them.  I knew what was important to me because I had protected it.  The choices left me alone with the bird - but eventually brought me the relationships I wanted most.  Soon I brought them to walk down the thick stairs and to take off their shoes and see the rocks.  And I kissed the boy and the little ones played in the waves and I was grateful for the company of the bird and knew certainly he was there for me.  Lonely fades then returns and sets us in motion.  Lonely reminds and remembers and brings us home.

Guess what? I did love it.

I loved Into The Woods.

I loved standing on the stage and talking with my whole body to push someone into MORE.

I loved thinking about the myriad of ways to hear every line.

My wishes have just been crushed.

Agreed.

Providence!

The path has strayed from you.

No more.

How can we ever know?

Makes the or mean more than he did before.

Wishes come true, not free.

.... home before dark.

I loved blocking the midnights

I loved making blood and toes and heels with my girls.

I loved wrapping that baby.

I loved listening to them sing.

I loved watching them dance.

I loved it when the cow died.

I loved making them run through the halls.

I loved it when they took care of each other.

Right? Right.

I loved that they trusted me. Mostly. I love that they mostly trusted me.

I miss them.

I miss their zany.

I miss their 'ah hahs'.

I miss the story.

I miss the energy.

I miss the edge.

Its nice to be safe in the trees again.

Its nice to sleep and to cook and to run and to clean and to eat with David.

It really is.

What a blessing to have amazing moments to miss.

Life is rich.

Next time I'm going to do better at loving what I will love while it is loving me.

I promise.

I promise.

Dumb.

I read a book last week about health in the last third of your life.

I’m left wondering whether or not I’m in the last third of my life.

I suppose if I die by the time I’m 60, then yes – the next twenty

years will be the last third of my life. But my plan is to live well into my 90’s

(and really, why not to 100? but after that seems excessive and kind

of braggy) and so I won’t be entering the last third of my life until

I’m 60 and so that means that right now I’m not even half way

finished. Thinking that I might learn again as much as I’ve learned

so far is all at once thrilling, exhausting, daunting and a mighty

relief. Because really I don’t feel like I know very many things.

Frank Lloyd Wright said “The trick is to grow up without growing old.” (I like so much of what Frank Lloyd Wright did – amazing architect and thinker. I really don’t admire the way he went about loving women.) How are they different?

Kipling’s IF resonates when I think about growing up.

He says you are grown up “if you…

… can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you;


If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,


But make allowance for their doubting too:


If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,


If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;


If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster


And treat those two impostors just the same."

It really is moderation isn’t it?

And moderation with the moderation too. Not

getting caught up, carried away, or drowning in any one thing –

but then, to be sure to experience getting caught up

and carried away – some way, some time.

Richard Dreyfuss said “part of me is still waiting to grow up,

to be an adult, and the other part knows there is no such thing.”

No such thing as a grown up? Someone who is all the way ….

finished? Yes, I agree. ING. It will always be ING.

Sometimes we grow out and sideways and in

circles and upside down even. I suppose it all counts.

I sure hope it does, cause it is hard work – the ING.

We must become a creature that wants to change

and does not fear it.

Every time I sit with my grandmother,

she pats my knee and rocks back and says “well,

everything is going to be just fine.” No matter the topic,

no matter the weight, she knows everything is going

to be just fine. How does she know that? Somewhere in all of

those years, she learned that we can’t own it and we can’t know it

and we can’t even mess it up.

We get to the end of the

movie and realize that it really did end just the way we

thought it would. It took unexpected turns and twists,

but the end was just what we thought it would be.

I’m quite convinced that part of the age game is coping with watching the people

around you age. Nothing makes me feel older than celebrating the

birthday of one of my children. Particularly the oldest and the

youngest. I have been known to pine for more children so that

I could feel younger. If I have an infant in my arms, somehow

I am also at the beginning. Why am I so afraid of being in the middle?

You know – I’d really love a crack at the beginning now that I know

what I know from the middle. But then my middle would be

different because I would change the beginning, and then maybe I wouldn't know what I know from the middle.

Within my social structure, I can find many age groups. Its invigorating and maddening. I spend a lot of time with kids

between 13 and 15, and then add my very own 14, 16 and 17 year olds, and I've got a world teeming with teenagers. They make me doubt my ability to reason. They make me question my every thought and I also

see life afresh and with hope and possibility. And they make me laugh.

Due to unique circumstances I also have a group of friends in their 20’s and early 30’s. This group makes me restless. This is the group that urges me to want to start over and try it again. But I know it would take about 8 tries to really get it right, so I think I’m happier just moving forward. Strangely, I pass around advice to this group. I want to stop. I just want to pat their knees and tell them that everything is going to be alright. They are doing things differently than me and sometimes I reel in jealousy. That’s pretty dumb. I have everything I wish and we don’t all wish the same wishes. But sometimes I wonder if someone else’s wishes would look good on me.

Yep – dumb.

We are dumb.

Born dumb, live dumb, die dumb.

Maybe the secret is to be ok with all the dumb. My dumb – your dumb – his…

And live anyway.

Jump anyway.

Fly anyway.

Cry anyway.

I’m not afraid. Not even of my very own dumb. Well, I’m trying at least. Maybe by the time I’m in my last third… or sixth…. or eighteenth, I won’t be afraid of anything dumb.